Trick R Treat [Original Soundtrack]

In his liner notes, which take up seven of the 12 pages of the CD booklet for the Trick 'r Treat soundtrack album, writer/director Michael Dougherty reveals that at one point in the production process for the film, composer Douglas Pipes was told "that the score would have to be a synthesized abomination" due to budget/i>/a>…
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Overview

In his liner notes, which take up seven of the 12 pages of the CD booklet for the Trick 'r Treat soundtrack album, writer/director Michael Dougherty reveals that at one point in the production process for the film, composer Douglas Pipes was told "that the score would have to be a synthesized abomination" due to budget constraints. This did not turn out to be the case, no doubt at least in part because of Dougherty's strong feelings about film music in general and music for horror films in specific. ."..[A] lot of today's scores tend to be just random shifting tones and electronic droning," he complains, adding, "modern horror music tends to be a forgetful hodgepodge of white noise and loud [strings] without a single note that evokes a moment or character from the film." Clearly, Dougherty was determined this would not be the case with a film that represented the first screenplay he ever wrote and his directorial debut, even if it was a straight-to-video horror anthology. Thus, he not only brought in Pipes, who had distinguished himself with his score to Monster House, but he also spent the money to hire an 85-piece orchestra of first-call Hollywood musicians. With Dougherty's inspiration, Pipes has delivered a score that makes obvious homages to the kind of music his writer/director admires, specifically the dramatic and romanticized work of Bernard Herrmann in his scores for Alfred Hitchcock movies like Psycho (with dozens of string players slashing across their instruments violently) on the one hand, and on the other delicate, contemplative keyboard themes like the one John Carpenter wrote for the first Halloween film and Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" theme as used in The Exorcist. That makes this score far more ambitious than one might expect for a picture that isn't even being given a theatrical run, but it demonstrates the composer's talent and will add to the enjoyment of horror fans who seek the film out in its digital, home video, and television distribution.